(Last) Weekly Roundup: I Came, I Saw, I Conquered Some Of It, Anyway

As some of you know, and others deduced ahead of time, I made my debut in the Pirelli World Challenge this past Friday, driving the same Accord Coupe that I've been racing in NASA Great Lakes since May. It would be an understatement to say that we brought a knife to a gun fight; not only did I have the slowest and heaviest car in the race, I was one of just two FWD cars in a 21-car field.

We started 20th of 21 on the same tires we'd used for both practice and qualifying. On the first lap I made up five positions to win the Optima Batteries Best Start award. After five laps, I was running 14th and coming up on the 13th and 12th place Bimmers. That was when the CV joint in my right axle lost all its grease and started wobbling apart. Ten laps later my clutch checked out. I could no longer accelerate in fifth gear because the drag of the axle was so bad. I managed to hold on to 14th, winning the VP Fuels Hard Charger Award for gaining the most positions during the race. You can see the final classification on the PWC timing site.

Unfortunately for us, there was no new axle to be had within 500 miles on a Saturday night, so we elected to watch Sunday's race rather than try repacking the wobbly axle. I didn't want to risk our car and the cars of the 7 drivers that would have started behind me. That sucked. It sucks to be poor, at least in this context; I showed up pulling Spike the Accord on an open trailer. Some of the other teams had Prevosts, toterhomes, and spare cars. We were the only team that couldn't afford a new set of tires for every session. I still haven't paid for my fuel drum...

Doesn't matter. I told my friends and my team that I could take them to The Show and demonstrate that we have what it takes to run with the big boys. I believed in them and I believed in myself. It takes a special kind of narcissistic jerkoff to sit on his couch in Ohio and say, "Hey, if I had an old Accord I bet I could whip some ass on television." I am that jerkoff. If you look at the season points for Pirelli World Challenge Touring Car, you will see me and my team on there. Not dead last.

Click the jump for some more photos and a quick rundown of last week's work.

Me and John in August of 2009, in my only Grand-Am race.

Here we are in 2018, re-creating the same picture. John is aging much better than I am.

Best Start award. You'd think I would win a battery for this but I did not.

Getting some love on the live feed.

Spike the Accord. He is not welcome back next year.

Nice shot of the Esses in practice.

This was mildly upsetting. Mostly because I thought he was going to bounce back across into me.

This ragtag group of people brought me all the way here.

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For R&T, I wrote about the Escalade that only rich people buy. For TTAC, I discussed options bundling and reviewed a Malaysia-built Volvo S90 T8 Twin Engine.

For Bicycling, I covered balance bikes for children. This is basically a listicle but I tried to put some of my own industry knowledge into the text. I'm hoping to do some truly great work with the magazine in the future.

Brother Bark reviewed a very big Nissan.

As always, thank you for reading!